Indian Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar has said that “strong sentiments” in the Global South regarding the perceived unfairness of the present international order are fueling a desire for change, according to the news agency AFP. 

Jaishankar’s statement, made on Sunday, came ahead of the G7 Summit in Canada where Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is one of the invitees representing the Global South. “There are very strong feelings in the Global South about the inequities of the international order, the desire to change it, and we are very much part of that,” he said.

The Indian foreign minister added that it is important for New Delhi to make its presence felt at the Canada summit. “We have been an outreach country in the G7 for many years, and I think it brings benefits to the G7,” he said. 

The G7, or Group of Seven, is an informal intergovernmental forum which was established in the mid-1970s consisting of seven of the world’s most advanced economies: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States. While not a member, India plays an important role in the G20, an expanded group which was established in 1999.

BRICS, an intergovernmental organization established in 2009 by Brazil, Russia, India, and China (as BRIC), with South Africa joining in 2010, is widely seen as representative of the Global South. The group later expanded to include Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Ethiopia, Indonesia and Iran.

Vietnam recently joined the bloc as a partner country. The original five countries are all members of the G20, where they are seen as a counterweight to the G7. India’s active trade involvement with Russia and other members of BRICS, particularly in sectors such as oil and defense, has drawn the ire of G7 countries such as the US.

Recently, US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said while addressing the eighth US-India Strategic Partnership Forum that India’s participation in the group, which challenges the hegemony of the US dollar, is “not really the way to make friends and influence people in America.”

The original five BRICS countries overtook their G7 counterparts in share of the world’s total gross domestic product (GDP) in terms of purchasing power parity in 2018, according to the German online platform Statista.

The current BRICS members now account for 35 percent of the world’s GDP, compared to 30 percent held by the G7 countries, according to Statista.

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